First ever Indian Standard (IS) on Bullet Resistant Jackets approved by BIS

The first-ever Indian Standard (IS ) on Bullet Resistant Jacket for protection against small arms and ammunition for defence, paramilitary and police forces has been released. After a long time, India will have its own Standard for Bullet Proof Jackets (BPJ): IS17051:2018, which prescribes minimum requirements of bulletproof jackets against small arms and their evaluation procedures.

The standard has been approved by Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) after a draft finalised by the Textiles Protective Clothing Sectional Committee was authorized by the Textile Divisional Council. Thus, the adoption of the standard is treated as a milestone in setting minimum performance requirements of bullet resistant jackets and screen the supply so that only acceptable quality reaches the wearer.

The standards are formed keeping in mind the Indian needs. Until now, the bullet proof jackets and helmets provided to the Indian security forces were based on the NIJ III+ Standard, which refers to ballistic resistance of a body armour.

The main challenge faced is reducing the weight of the jacket from 10.5 kg to 6 kg matching the scientific criteria. Moreover Indian Standard for bullet resistant jackets is expected to help in accelerating the procurement process by the user agencies and in testing of materials. It is mandatory that all standards should be adopted in all procurement orders of the security forces.

“Our work begins now as we have the indigenous capacity to go to the next level, i.e. use of lighter material for jackets. The standard could become a base to supply the jackets to South East Asia where the requirements are similar to India’s.” – Surina Rajan, Director General, Bureau of Indian Standards

Dr G Satheesh Reddy, Secretary, Department of Defence R&D and Chairman, DRDO pointed out that the new standards may not be uniform for different security forces operating in different terrains thus, the standards needs to be dynamic which can be changed with different operating conditions.